Any argument that builds on protecting the cash cows for Microsoft is not helpful, either to Microsoft or to the community. For big companies to survive long t

Any argument that builds on protecting the cash cows for Microsoft is not helpful, either to Microsoft or to the community. For big companies to survive long term, the main thing is to have the flexibility to do that. The most relevant example here is IBM, which almost didn't survive the 80s until they emphasized more system integration. As humanity progresses, demands will change. Microsoft has enough power, both in terms of number of employees and in cash, to pursue more than one option. Hence, many of the innovation coming from Microsoft Research can be very useful in the future. Moreover, one of the main advantages for Microsoft in the 80s and 90s was that they are friendly to developers. Of course there will eventually be a tie-in. You start using IronRuby, then you find ready .Net solutions to your programming, then you commit to using their database, and maybe visualisation via Excel, and you find yourself and your customers tied to the Windows/Office platform. Just like many companies are tied to IE6 despite what Microsoft wants and despite common sense. Give developers no incentives at all, and they wander around. At some point, the clear division in tools makes people either commit to Microsoft or to everything else, and when Windows come short (and it will, nothing is forever) people will move in droves. But give them a semblance of cross compatibility, and they will stick to Windows/Office while convincing themselves that there is always a way out. In reality, they will be locked by the economics of rewriting all the use of .Net technologies. Bad for the community, because splitting the community into Microsoft and others camps will lessen competition in both sides. Cross pollination will C# and Ruby will not exist when there is no shared community. And no improvements will be needed in either camp because of new features in the other.